App Scanner

A cross-platform Python utility to find installed applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

This library provides a simple function, get_installed_apps(), that returns a list of installed applications on the host operating system.

Features

• Cross-Platform: Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• Simple API: A single function to get the list of apps.
• Lightweight: No external dependencies.

Installation

pip install app-scanner

Usage

from app_scanner import get_installed_apps

apps = get_installed_apps()

for app in apps:
    name = app['name']
    # On Windows, 'appid' is used as identifier; on macOS/Linux, 'path' is used
    identifier = app.get('appid') or app.get('path', 'N/A')
    print(f"Name: {name}, Identifier: {identifier}")

How it Works

• Windows: Uses PowerShell commands (Get-StartApps or Get-AppxPackage) to find installed applications from the Start Menu and returns app IDs for launching.
• macOS: Uses mdfind (Spotlight) to locate all .app bundles and reads their Info.plist for metadata.
• Linux: Scans for .desktop files in standard application directories including /usr/share/applications, ~/.local/share/applications, and additional paths for Snap, Flatpak, AppImage, and other package managers.